Non Sequitur by Wiley Miller for July 31, 2022

Puke-inducing partisanship.

They couldn’t agree heads or tails on a coin toss, but they would scratch each others eyes out trying to steal it

Let me put in a bad word for partisan primary elections, which attract almost exclusively the regulars, activists, loyalists, militants, and zealots in each party, resulting in the Democrats mainly preferring their leftmost contenders and the Republicans mainly preferring their rightmost contenders, so by the time the general election rolls around, the sensible majority in the moderate middle is understandably disgusted at the choices they have to make.

The solution to this is obvious and has been known for decades: Do away with the partisan primaries altogether, let anyone who can gather enuf signatures on a nominating petition run in the general election, and use preferential balloting (AKA instant-runoff voting AKA ranked-choice voting) to sort out the results. Under test cases, this approach almost always eliminated the extremists in the early going, resulting in elections of candidates who were at least acceptable to both sides and much favored by the centrists.

Yeah, that’s the solution that’s known to work. The problem — as with obscene amounts of big dark money in politicking — is that the only people in a position to do anything about it are the very ones who’ve been successful under the status quo. It’s an uphill fight to get them to budge, but it’s one worth fighting. Those who fight may lose; those who do not fight have already lost.

Professor Irwin Corey would possibly leave the audience baffled. It wouldn’t be sure if he were dazzling them with brilliance — or baffling them with bulls—t.

I thought modern debate meant that you never say what your position is, just trash your opponent (even if you don’t know what his/her position is)

Double like for this one. Seems to have been the model for recent decades. And notice, all the comments come from the right side of the panels. H-m-m-m-. . .

I grew up in a state that was almost one party. When I registered to vote I signed for party #2. The state was party #1.

My dad asked why I signed up for #2. Well, I said “the people in that party are the ones I feel most aligned with.

Yes, I understand, if you signed up for party #1, you would be able to vote in party #1 primary which gives you more control over who gets elected from party #1.

I was young, but I learned.

“However [political parties] may now and then answer popular ends, they are likely in the course of time and things, to become potent engines, by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people and to usurp for themselves the reins of government, destroying afterwards the very engines which have lifted them to unjust dominion.” George Washington

“[The spirit of party] serves always to distract the public councils and enfeeble the public administration. It agitates the community with ill-founded jealousies and false alarms, kindles the animosity of one part against another. “ George Washington It appears clearly, that this Founding Father had grave misgivings about letting political parties gain a foothold in society. It seems that uncontrollable massive money dumps into campaigns, social media, greed and win at any costs came true in Washington’s warning.

It’s sad how ONE Fat, Orange CRYBABY of a LOSER has managed to almost totally destroy a system that has worked pretty well for over 200 years and has managed to hornswoggle his low-watt, mouth-breathing, brain-dead minions into helping him to do it.

Oh, you almost always hit the nail on head head! I love it!

The guy on the right could be a Republican when he says we have to get government out of our lives. It depends on whether you are talking about mask mandates or abortion or LGBTQ rights.

Lets add some sizzle to the elections. Here’s the idea … one winner, of course, and the losers are sent to North Korea.

All part of the dog and pony show to distract voters from taxation and corruption. Next up: more IRS agents to do politically motivated audits.

I grew up in a small farming community in the Midwest, predominantly Republican territory, although the farm bill , a rather Democratic concept, was essential — woe to a Republican who wanted to cut the farm bill. My dad, a local businessman, was a registered Independent — because he didn’t want to offend either party. My mom watched to see who was going to run for local offices and then registered with whichever primary had candidates that she either wanted to vote for or vote against. [Since the people she would vote for were generally the more popular candidate, she usually ended up signing up to vote against a candidate.] She said she wanted her vote to really count. When I asked people about the difference between the parties, no one seemed to know or care much. There was just this general fuzzy idea that Democrats wanted to give stuff to other people who didn’t want to work — city-folk — and they made rules and regulations to keep people from making any money and Republicans were about small government and letting people do their own thing. [But they didn’t want to get rid of the farm bill or social security.] I don’t think much has changed in the last 60 years — except maybe they are starting to realize that Republicans actually don’t want to let people do their own thing.

Not to the mob, no…

Need a 3rd party in the middle, maybe call it the Common Sense party. Maybe with the power of the Internet it can happen.

See. That’s the secret of being a successful politician. It doesn’t matter what your talking about if you just say the right words.

The point of this cartoon, to me anyway, is that the electorate are ignorant/ill informed, and reactionary.

Getting the money and insider trading out of politics would be a great start. Now we have the likes of Pfizer, Raytheon, & the big banks dictating gov’t policy. None of it is in the interests of human beings. Both parties are complicit and hamstrung, compromised and captured.

Politicans should be continually hooked up to detectors that buzz loudly whenever they lie…granted you’d never be able to hear anything they ever said.

They must be reading the comments here.

Of course they’re talking about the same thing…Gunabortions. The next thing they agree on is, “If you ban one gunabortion, it’s just the first step on the path to banning all of them!”

Why elect a ‘King’ every 4 years – based on his/her/it’s personality?? Elect a party that stands for one’s value-set, then let that party elect a leader – and fire him/her/it if they are no good. US ‘personality cult’ politics accounts for most of the endless $@#% we have had to tolerate!

‘Toon sums up the gun debate, but it’s highly unlikely Wiley had that in mind when he crafted it.

From Futurama – debate between John Jackson and Jack Johnson:

“I say your three cent titanium tax goes too far.”

" And I say your three cent titanium tax doesn’t go too far enough!"

As I heard once in a talk, ‘accepting partisan platform politics in totality’ is always wrong because what if there are platform issues you cannot accept in conscience?

“The Great Debate” between astronomers Shapley and Curtis was whether some nebula were just part of the Milky Way or other Milky Ways far beyond ours.

Whether it’s direction or misdirection, disaster is bound to ensue!

I believe it was the book Parkinson’s Law and Other Studies in Management that advanced the concept of the perfect job description. It would be written in such a manner that only one person would apply for the job, and he or she would be the perfect fit for it. The example cited was for prime minister of Great Britain, and the part of the description that was designed to cull out the mere wannabes was the promise that, after 6 months, the successful candidate would be killed and eaten by members of her or his own cabinet.

This is very true of both sides. If the one party says something, the other side is horrified, but if their party says the same thing, it is gospel truth

Whoa! Monday Morning Overthink is a day early!!!!! Talking about you, R…

Sometimes this is a comic. Other times it makes me cry. A crymic.

Which end of the egg should be cracked first ?

He hasn’t done a single-panel in over a week. If this keeps up, I’m giving up.

If you can’t get one here go someplace you can and quit whining.

Solution is to never vote for the same politician twice.

It doesn’t matter what they say, neither side is listening anyway.

Yep, crazy world out there, and getting crazier all the time.

Most people seem to want government out of their lives but into someone else’s.

A perfect summary of the idiocy of the obliviots who inhabit the extremes of the original spectrum.And unfortunately they help ensure that the more reasoned of the political spectrum, and society in general, don’t get what they deserve but what the obliviots wrongly think is best for them, including bankrupting the country.